


Every Lifetime I Meet You

by ProfoundlyInLove



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 25 Lifetimes, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Alternative Universe - FBI, Army, Basically every AU I could imagine in one fic, Chaotic Clurphy Energy, Clarke Griffin & John Murphy Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Hacking, Long-Distance Relationship, Long-Term Relationship(s), Lost Love, Multi, Post-Apocalypse, Praimfaya | Radiation Wave, Rebirth, Remembering Past Lives, Sharing a Bed, Smoking, Soulmates, Temporary Character Death, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:46:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25769143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfoundlyInLove/pseuds/ProfoundlyInLove
Summary: Every single life time without fail, Bellamy Blake would fall into her life. Without fail they would reach their end together, no matter how it went. Sometimes it was beauty, and sometimes it was all the pain that could be crammed in a short life.With the silence of Praimfaya deafening, Clarke finds peace in echoes of memories she never truly experienced, until the day her Bellamy could come home.Memories were enough for five years.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what warnings this will need because it's basically a new world per chapter with some mentions to the "canon" of the fic aka Canon but whatever. I'll add warnings before chapters if needed but I don't see anything as of now to warn of. But the themes are relatively canon level so keep that in mind.

Many cultures and religions believe in soulmates. The idea that no matter what time, life, or existence you are in, your match will always find you. It doesn’t matter the miles, space or years between them, a magnet will always pull them together. Whether it’s platonic and love, their souls can never exist without the other. 

Life just isn’t complete without the other part of your entire being. Even if you don’t know it, believe it, or completely deny it. There’s a string tying some people together that can’t be snipped or broken, and is never seen. We all love to believe that we found our soulmate, but we never truly know. 

Your soulmate could be the man who took care of you when you had nothing else in that world.

_ “Clarke, you’ve got to sleep. It’s past ten already and you’ve got class in the morning.” _

He could be the man at work you’ve always hated but something about him always surprises you. 

“ _ You think that because I’m some fire junkie means I’ve got no one, you’re wrong. I’ve got someone to take care of, Griffin. Maybe think about protecting your own ass next time.” _

Clarke couldn’t deny it anymore in the silence of Praimfaya. Alone on the face of the Earth with her own thoughts as she stared up at the sky where the Ring should be. They always tell stories to children about soulmates, and that there was another person in the world built for you. It was hard to believe when you were living on an Ark with all that was left of the human race.

But Earth bred new possibilities. Until it all burned down around her, quite literally. 

Maybe she was losing her mind when her thoughts drifted to places that never made any sense. Memories of a life she never lived, time after time. But his face was always there, and they always fit exactly like a puzzle made for one. 

_ “I slept with you once, this wasn’t exactly a part of my plans either!” _

Sometimes the memories were peaceful, blissful even. Other times they were filled with pain and sorrow, though she had to admit that none had rivaled her current reality. But his presence was a constant, and for once in her life she was grateful that Bellamy Blake wouldn’t leave her thoughts for even a second.

_ “Marry me, Wanheda, make me King of the Sea!” _

She laid in the grass of the valley and let his voice flood her mind like a drug addict getting their high. It was like playing with fire, lighting a match to her sanity. But what was sanity when you were the last person on Earth?

When she found Madi, she couldn’t claim the title anymore. But the point still stood, what did her sanity truly matter at this point? There was no war to fight, no lives to save. Just teaching English to a Nightblood child and trying to make sure she brushed her hair every day. 

Her mind never stopped wandering, always leaving her at the same place, Bellamy Blake.

_ “He’s dangerous, Clarke. Trust me and just let him go.” _

_ “She’s perfect, Clarke. She looks just like you. But that hair is a Bellamy Blake original.” _

Every thought was a complete contrast, and yet they all were the same. Just different parts of himself on full display for the world to see. Roughed up in different ways, and different times.

_ “You’re not allowed to die on me, Bellamy Blake! Breathe!” _

Clarke looked up at the sky and pretended she could see the outline of the Ring up above, and she sent a silent thought his way.

“We’re still breathing, Bellamy.”


	2. Life 1

Clarke didn’t like a single person in the bar. It was all grunge, shitty ink, and watered down pitchers of beer that tasted like piss. Just looking at her, it looked like she walked into the wrong bar and was about to be eaten alive, but somehow she belonged. The grunge, the shitty tattoos, and the awful beer that was always cheap enough to wash away the worries.

She really didn’t like any of them, though. Stuck with them in some sort of existential joke of a life? Definitely. Even Clarke’s chosen family was a disaster. 

In the far booth she could see Emori throwing her beer at Murphy, so it was a relatively normal Thursday night. By tomorrow they’d be right back at hooking up in the tattoo shop bathroom while pretending it was the most platonic thing to ever grace Earth. Clarke really needed them to stop doing that before a health inspector decided to actually do their job and inspect. 

Raven and Luna were both talking behind the bar in hushed tones of the dying night, doing that thing where Raven explains the mechanical changes she made to Clarke’s machine to “distribute ink more evenly,” or some other, and Luna would pretend to understand every word. It was the oddest foreplay Clarke had ever seen.

At least they were all getting laid. That was something she was jealous of. Monty and Harper were off making a baby for God sake, and she was still alone in the bar that her Father had raised her in. It felt more like a home than any other four walls did. Now that her parents had passed, she lived in the upstairs apartment. She’d sold their house to buy the property next to the bar to start her tattoo business. 

It was practically a one stop shop for bad decisions. Drink and ink. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone unusual. Not that everyone in the bar wasn’t unusual. But this man was the kind of unusual that was so normal that it was eerie. Clean cut, sharp and straight posture. If the Army fatigues didn’t give him away, she would have definitely guessed a Marine. 

Clarke couldn’t help that it interested her. She was always the kid who liked to play with fire. This was no exception. So she slid into the open chair next to him like it was natural, and part of her actually thought it was. 

“My Dad never liked when people thanked him, so how about a beer?” Clarke asked breezily as she leaned up to the bar, cocking her head to face him. A small grin spread on his face when he nodded, so Clarke motioned Raven for two.

“You heading in or out?” Clarke asked as she sipped at the foamy top of her beer. 

The guy sighed, “Out for a bit, who knows how long really. Probably back to Iraq soon. But I know I’m here for today,” He laughed. 

She decided it was a good laugh. A great one, if she was really ranking it. Maybe the best if she actually decided to be honest with herself.

Instead of having an internal existential crisis, she drank more of her beer.

“My sister was supposed to meet me here, says she likes it here, but she bailed for her girlfriend. I’m in town for one day,” He grumbled lightly, obviously not very upset. He drank his beer greedily, soon ready for another. 

“What’s her name? I know most of the people who come through here.” Clarke said casually. It was true, she did. But it was more because she owned the place and most people that worked there were practically all her foster children despite little to no age difference. 

“Octavia, O for short.”

Oh god. This was O’s big brother, of course it was. 

She remembered the first time she met Octavia. It was when she was tattooing a sibling tat for her. It was such a simple tattoo, just the roman numeral for two on her inner wrist. Now that she was thinking about it, she could see a small roman numeral on the man's wrist as well, so there was no doubting it now. 

This was the infamous Bellamy Blake.

It was hard to tell if all the stories from Octavia were accurate, knowing her. She was an all emotion kind of person. Clarke tried to think more logically. 

“Do I ever know her,” Clarke snorted, feeling a small bit of beer foam go up her nose.

Bellamy chuckled, seemingly unsurprised. 

“So you’re free then, because she’s definitely not showing up.” Clarke deadpanned, looking at him expectedly.

“Usually a guy gets dinner first.” He joked, and it was stupid how attractive it was.

“Not what I meant, you want to get out of here? I’m bored, let’s have some fun. I’m sure it’ll be the night you remember while you’re blistering over in the Middle East.”

Bellamy woke up hungover in his own bed alone with a small tattoo that he didn’t recognize low on his hips where it could easily hide behind a uniform.

_ Call me. 206-222-2000  _ with a small paper airplane shooting off from the words. 

He was called back on that same morning, and he didn’t have a chance to call her for four months. But even sitting in the middle of a war, he couldn’t get this girl off his mind. So when he finally had a chance to use a phone, he couldn’t think of a better person to call. His sister didn’t like doing calls, preferred letters so that she couldn’t hear anything happening in the background. It worried her too much and for that Bellamy couldn’t blame her.

Usually it was quiet, but every once in a while they could get some action out here. Though it was never preferable. They’d been deployed to help stabilize the area and it just felt like all they did was the opposite.

When Miller handed him the phone, he had a knowing smirk on his face. “You’re gonna call tattoo girl, aren’t you?” 

Bellamy laughed but took the phone anyway, waving off his friend and sat at the booth meant for privacy.

The ringing seemed to go on forever before he got an answer, “It’s the middle of the fucking night, who is this?” She grumbled, sounding like she was barely awake. Bellamy forgot about the time difference from Iraq to the West coast. But he couldn’t help but feel like even if she hung up at the moment, the grumble was worth it. 

Maybe he was attention starved like Octavia had always said.

But that would make Octavia a rational thinking human being and Bellamy couldn’t even think about that possibility.

“You tattooed your number on me. Four months ago roughly.”

“That’s right, I did. Army guy! Why didn’t you call before?” Clarke asked, suddenly sounding more awake and Bellamy couldn’t help but sigh in relief.

“I left the next day, been in Iraq. But figured that I didn’t want you to think I never saw your handiwork.” He explained. It felt casual, like talking to an old friend back home. But it was just a girl he met at a bar on leave.

Maybe she was more, but he didn’t like to think that far ahead. Not now, at least.

He could still remember that night like it was yesterday and sometimes he thought about it at night to keep the nightmares at bay. The bright lights, karaoke in a diner down in an even shittier part of town, and the way she talked so passionately about every subject that she could ever come up with. From the pie flavor they chose (they bought one of each in the end,) to the smell of the grass on a dewy Monday morning before she went to work. 

That was something he couldn’t forget about her. She was the human essence of passion. He’d stood too close to the sun and now he was stuck in its orbit.

“Was I right?” She asked.

He knew what she was asking without her even saying it. Did he remember that night to keep him sane in the blistering heat of the Middle East?

“Affirmative.”

She laughed like music. Every note of her voice singing and he didn’t want it to stop.

Maybe Octavia was right.

“So, Staff Sergeant Blake, is this a personal call or are you wanting to sue a poor tattoo artist for drunken decisions?” She asked teasingly and his stomach flipped in a way that if he described it, it would just embarrass him. 

“I would lean towards personal, as long as I can keep calling the number. It’s on my body after all.” Bellamy said in a joking tone, but he was serious. The kind of serious that made him nervous. 

“Call as often as you want. I’ll answer, just for you, Army boy.” Clarke teased.

In the background, Bellamy could see the next guy waiting for a chance at the phone. It was late for Clarke anyway. 

He could always call again.

“I’ve got to go, but I’ll remember what you said, Clarke Griffin.”

“I hope you do.”

He couldn’t help the wide grin as he handed the phone to the next guy in line.

  
  


Clarke sat at her desk the next day doodling, when she was supposed to be designing a tattoo for a customer. It was too early in the day for any actual appointments, and not many people were drunk enough for a walk in. So she let her mind wander, and that meant her drawing wandered as well. 

Drawing deep brown eyes, or bottles of sand with dog tags hanging on them, or even something as embarrassing as little hearts in the corner of the page. It was like a teenage girls diary.

At that realization she stared at the page in horror. Part of her wanted to burn it, and another part wanted to stuff it away in a hiding spot where no one would ever find it.

She  _ liked  _ Bellamy Blake. 

It wasn’t like she tried. Something about him made her feel like she was on fire and she was obsessed with the feeling. Watching someone so held back finally let go and have fun, seeing them break free from their own cage, it was addicting.

Or maybe it was just him that was so addicting.

Octavia would lose her mind if she knew about it, so she chose to keep her night with Bellamy Blake to herself.

And that she looked forward to every three am call that he could give her.

_ “Tell me, after Iraq, beach sex. Would you do it?” Clarke chuckled, leaning up in bed to listen intently to every word he spoke. Sometimes she worried it would be the last word she’d ever hear him say so she imprinted it in her memory like a tattoo, never willing to let it go. _

_ “God no. There’s enough sand in my balls to last a lifetime.” _

_ “Good, I hear it can lead to a nasty infection.” She laughed. _

Every once in a while he would call during the day, and they’d made it a game at this point. If anyone was around, she had to act as natural as possible while Bellamy made jokes about it all. 

They didn’t talk about why Octavia hated him. 

Clarke shoved the doodles into her desk when she heard the front door of the tattoo shop open, and she stood to meet them at the entrance.

Army fatigues, curly hair, brown eyes, and a warm smile stood at her door.

If all she was going to get was surprise visits from the mysterious man in green, she won’t complain. It’s not like she had a love life to speak of, everything always blew up in her face like a molotov cocktail, and burned everything around her with it. So a sometimes boy who smiled at her like she turned on the light for him in the dark was welcome, especially since she was still stuck in the dark on her own.

“Well, welcome home, soldier.” Clarke said, cheeky. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she leaned against the door to watch him. She hadn’t seen him in person for nine months. Hadn’t felt that long until now.

“I’ve got forty-eight hours and a completely free schedule. What do you say, Princess?”

She said yes.

She woke up on a Wednesday morning with a amateur hour tattoo on the inside of her lip that said Princess, a hickey on her collarbone that kind of looked like Texas, and that ooey gooey feeling in the pit of her stomach that Raven liked to call “Post Coital Bliss,” but Murphy was relatively unhelpful when he said that it meant she caught feelings.

Clarke sat up at the bar booth that night with a sad expression as she looked at Murphy, “Fuck. I caught feelings.”

“No shit you did, Clarke.”

She told Bellamy the next time he visited. He told her back right after he left over the phone in her driveway. It took everything in her to not run outside and drag him back in.

She made sure he knew he was the only one for her the time after that. He didn’t waste any time in telling her the same. 

Clarke spent the next six years of her life in that balance of her sometimes-always boy. She rarely got to fall asleep next to him but her heart hadn’t slept in her own bed for a long time. Sometimes she didn’t even know where he was, he couldn’t even tell her. Other days he’d show up on her porch and it was like she was alive again. Sometimes he’d be stationed on the other side of the country, sometimes other parts of the world. But he always came back to her every chance he could.

She never said it out loud but sometimes she thought about him being her always boy. Clarke never thought to bring it up, afraid to change things in a way that she would regret. Sometimes was better than never. So she just looked forward to the surprise afternoons he’d stop by at her afternoon art group she did for the at-risk youth, or the nights he’d be waiting for her on her porch in the swing he’d built for her.

In the house they bought in both their names but they never really talked about that.

Octavia had made herself clear a long time ago that she wouldn’t be a part of their life, and part of her understood. Part of her heart broke when she decided that, and she knew that a piece of him died.

Just like Lincoln had.

But it was another thing they didn’t like to talk about.

The next time he showed up was when Murphy and Emori were finally getting married. It was a miracle that they’d gotten themselves together long enough to actually plan a big, beautiful wedding.

Murphy had asked her that night when she was finally going to get married.

She helped Emori smash a little extra cake in his face.

It’s not that she didn’t think about it. She thought about it so often that she thought her heart might explode.

She had no idea if he even thought about it. From what she’d seen he hadn’t even thought about leaving the Army. He seemed like a lifer.

It made her wonder if she was built to be a lifer.

When he showed up at the door that morning, she knew something was different.

He was still just as rigid. His back was always straight with perfect posture and discipline. But he was wearing loose jeans and a blue henley that looked so comfortable and soft. His hair was just a little longer, and his shaved face now had stubble from days of neglect.

Bellamy didn’t say anything about it. Just held her in his arms for as long as possible.

She thought about it at work all day. He was meeting her at the bar after she finished, and she was on edge. Clarke nearly spelled Monty’s name wrong on Harper’s collarbone. It was a nightmare.

When the door chimed around lunch time, Clarke couldn’t help but sigh. She’d been looking forward to a quiet lunch.

It wasn’t a client. 

Long brown hair, hardened expression, and tired eyes.

Octavia.

Clarke didn’t even have a second to process the situation until Octavia was talking. 

It all ended in a collision of words and, “He’s dangerous Clarke, trust me and just let him go.”

Her day went even slower after that.

She tried not to think about what Octavia had said all those years ago. It didn’t sound like Bellamy and didn’t make any sense.

_ “He killed Lincoln.” _

Clarke was pretty sure she gave Iilian a typo but she prayed that he wouldn’t notice.

The buzzing of that tattoo machine was giving her a migraine today. 

She was almost positive that the clock was out of batteries as she stared at it between appointments.

When it was finally closing time, Clarke was the first out the door and she tossed the keys to Emori begging her to close. Also to not fuck Murphy in the bathroom while she was gone, though she didn’t hold her breath over that.

Bellamy sat at the bar where he always did. A beer in his hand, and another set to his side waiting for her. He looked so relaxed in contrast to her shaking form. Something was wrong and she didn’t know what, and that drove her insane.

Against her better instincts she sat down next to him in silence, letting him start the conversation. He sounded so calm and casual. It wasn’t fair.

“So I’m out now.” Bellamy said without any great emotion, like it wasn’t something life changing.

“Like… Out for good?” Clarke asked carefully, eyeing him for a flinch or sign or remorse.

There was none.

“I am no longer under contract with the Army. I’m just a guy in a bar now.”

“And I’m just a girl in a bar.” Clarke smiled back, and she felt like she could come up for air.

They still had a lot to talk about.

“What are you going to do now, Master Sergeant Blake?”

“I happen to know this really great shitty bar that could use some management help. Their owner is busy running this amazing tattoo business next door, I hear she’s pretty awesome.”

“Yeah maybe she is,” Clarke grinned at him. 

This was all she ever needed.

“Do you want to be a girl at home in her own bed for once?” He asked with a small hopeful smile.

“Definitely.”

It was slow and emotional. She touched every inch of his body like she was worshipping a God. He was a temple and she could only worship. He always returned the favor. He whispered sweet nothings into her skin as she came, mind swirling as he repeated  _ I love you _ over and over again.

She missed his skin touching hers, and the sound of his voice echoing in the silence of their home. It felt like a part of her was always missing, no matter how much she denied it.

This was his home and never wouldn’t be. And she didn’t mean the house.

She kissed him like it was the only was for her heart to keep beating

When they laid in bed that night, heavy questions laid on them like weights dragging them under water.

“Did you kill Lincoln?” Clarke asked in a quiet tone, unwavering. She could barely see his face in the dim light of the dark bedroom, their only light being a few candles on her bedside that always reminded her of home.

She didn’t miss the look of grief and pain on his face.

“Yes.”

“How?” She didn’t miss a beat.

“We were seventeen and stupid. Octavia was fifteen. She was out of her mind for him. He needed money, badly. I don’t even know why. My life was a mess back then. We did something that I’ll regret till the day I die. He didn’t make it. They gave me the option of prison or the military and I took my chances.” 

Clarke was still and quiet.

Instead of saying anything, she pulled him into her arms and hushed him, threading her fingers through his hair.

She listened to him cry and tell stories about Lincoln that he’d long forbidden himself to tell.

The time that they snuck out to light off illegal fireworks at the old highschool in their neighborhood and accidentally started a small fire.

And when Lincoln kicked someone's ass in fourth grade for calling Bellamy trashy.

He was his brother and he wasn’t allowed to feel the pain. 

“If you need forgiveness, Bellamy. I’ll give that to you.”

The candles long burned out before he spoke again, “I was gonna propose and shit but it felt like wrong timing.” Bellamy mumbled into her skin. Clarke couldn’t help but smile to herself.

Maybe a Sometimes boy could be an Always boy.

Maybe she wouldn’t mind a little noise at three in the morning besides the ringing of her cellphone and the staticy voice of his phone calls. 

“Maybe you still should.” Clarke said quietly, unsure of herself. 

Bellamy looked at her with a smile full of a thousand emotions, and instead of saying anything he pulled a ring out of his jean pockets off the floor and held it up for her.

It was simple, small, and perfect in every way, shape, and form.

“God yes, Bellamy Blake.”

She knew Bellamy Blake wasn’t perfect, but she always had. She knew that he carried so much pain around with him every day that he may never be able to let go of. She knew he carried the weight of death with him and would until death finally claimed himself.

It was worth it.

They signed the papers in four days.

He became her always-wasn’t-leaving boy. She really liked that.

When the positive showed on the home test eight months later, they cried together on the tiles of the bathroom floor. He held her hair while she puked in the middle of the night, and bought her cranberry sauce in August. 

When their daughter was born they named her August. 

Their daughter would never be alone.

“She looks just like you, Clarke. But that hair is a Bellamy Blake original.”

He was right and she couldn’t be happier.


	3. Life 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt was easily five years old but "I'm a master hacker and you're trying to find me, but you still fall in love with me" 
> 
> the prompt was massacred but the idea remains.

Clarke always took comfort in the knowledge that she knew she was on the good team. There was no way not to be when you dedicated your life to catching criminals that tried to hide behind the anonymity of the internet. It was the actual definition of good guy, Clarke wanted them to put her face next to the definition of good guy.

It hadn’t always been that clear cut but it was now, and she refused to let that change.

She sat at her desk that morning and nothing could dull the headache she had. It was like when she was in college and would wake up on her sorority bedroom floor half dressed regretting everything she did. She felt so alone and she had no idea why. It was like she was the only person on Earth in the quiet of her office.

The number two thousand one hundred and ninety nine was stuck in her head and she felt insane that morning.

She drank more coffee instead of dealing with it.

Most of her job was relatively solitary these days. Work on the computer to figure out where people really were, who they were, and getting enough evidence to put them in jail. All from the comfort of her desk. 

The internet was kind of awesome.

When a spot opened in the cyber-crimes unit, she’d jumped on the opportunity and hasn’t regretted it yet.

The screen on her computer went completely green and she stilled in confusion.

What followed next was fear.

The screen changed to a landscape of trees and green, “Welcome to Eden, Clarke Griffin.”

She knew what this was.

There was a small terrorist group that used less than moral ways to cause chaos and make people do what they think is right. Their ideas weren’t the issues, it was how they spread their message.

But why were they contacting her? What did they want?

“Kane! I’m going to need you in my office right now!” Clarke shouted, refusing to tear her eyes away from the computer. 

A shift of code rolled over the screen, barely noticeable. She quickly worked to capture it before it was gone forever.

“When you start to figure it out, we’ll talk again, Princess. Do better.” An audio recording played, a deep voice, and she started to fill with horror as she stared at the screen. Just a landscape of green trees and endless possibilities.

Kane came slower than he should have.

Clarke was staring at the empty screen now, missing the feeling that the green gave her.

Clarke didn’t mention the code when she told Marcus about what had happened, and a new case file was added to her load.

“Find Eden.”

At home in the silence of her apartment she was left with echoing thoughts that she begged to be silent.

The green. The life. The freedom and peace. The choice of just existing. No more fighting.

That was always the dream, wasn’t it?

She missed those days.

She’d been fifteen when her parents died. Lost her place in the world. She slipped through all the cracks and found herself with no one in an unforgiving world.

Someone found her and brought her home.

She was nineteen when she left. Broken hearted, soul heavy with guilt, and her goal in life had shifted.

Be the good guy.

Do better.

She knew what was in that code and it made her want to throw up.

Bellamy Blake was like a cockroach that just wouldn’t seem to die.

She didn’t want to open that chapter of her life again. Things finally made sense again. Clarke couldn’t even imagine why they would want her back after she left.

She didn’t want to think about how she wasn’t even considering that going back would make her complicit to  _ minor _ terrorism.

Was there such a thing as minor terrorism? Clarke wasn’t really sure about the technicalities of that. 

The more she thought about it, the sicker she felt. That just lead to her leaning over the toilet at three in the morning, stress riddling every part of her body. She didn’t want to think about the implications. 

There were so many days after she first left that she wanted to go back. (There were still days now but she ignored that.) When she was going through the FBI training camp surrounded by faces she’d never seen, sleeping alone in a bed that felt far too empty. Or the days that she would feel like the world would crumble if she heard one more person talk about princesses. When she missed the idea of having a family so much that she thought she wouldn’t make it through the day. When she saw Wells and his wife and kid, it looked so easy and perfect.

She had easy and perfect once.

And then she didn’t.

The world was so miserably empty.

So she thought of green and she wasn’t really alone anymore.

She’d been in the real world for a decade now. She didn’t even know them anymore. But they still were what comforted her heart in the dark.

It was interesting how the word they could be singular and plural all in one sentence.

When she laid in bed, she forbade herself from imagining what they would be like now.

Would his smile still come as easily? Would Raven care just fiercely? Would Monty still be pining over Harper and vice versa? Would Octavia still be sneaking off to meet up with that guy that her brother hated?

Would he even remember her now?

She wasn’t thinking about it. 

Would he still hold her and tell her she was forgiven?

Not a chance.

But the thought was nice.

It was those kinds of thoughts that got her out of bed on the hardest days. It was selfish.

That had always been her love for him. Selfish. She needed it to breathe, to think, to feel alive.

It was hard to stay afloat without even the idea that in some world he could forgive her for her mistakes. Could forgive her for leaving him behind.

So she pretended. Every single moment she woke up she pretended until she laid her head down to sleep.

But he still haunted her dreams. She couldn’t ever truly escape.

Clarke didn’t have a clue where they were hiding right now. They used to change often. Always hiding, always running, always trying to stay alive. All they wanted was peace, quiet, and freedom.

Why was that so hard to get?

Clarke never had a good answer.

She pretended that this life gave her peace. In a way, it did. She was the good guy. 

That was enough, she’d decided.

She couldn’t help but wonder if Murphy found his peace, finally.

Clarke felt like she was falling into the hole again and she wasn’t even sure if she wanted out, and she hated herself for it.

For the first time since she was nineteen, she didn’t dream of Bellamy Blake. She dreamed of green.

_ “The ground, it’s the dream.” _

Clarke worked on cracking the code for three weeks when she got another message from Eden.

The picture was different this time, a small village that seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere. 

“There’s always going to be a home for you, Princess.”

She didn’t scream for her boss this time and guilt consumed her every thought. 

But Bellamy Blake had bled his way back into her life and she was powerless to stop it.

_ “Maybe there are no good guys, Clarke.” _

There were.

She just wasn’t sure she was truly ever one of them.

Clarke could remember taking apart her first computer in their living room at eleven and he Dad teaching her everything he knew.

She could remember going to the computer club everyday after school with Monty trying to figure out how to hack into the school's server to give themselves better grades. She remembers the first time she got caught. The first time the police called her parents. The first time she actually got brought in.

The first time she met Bellamy Blake in a temporary holding cell while waiting for her Mom to come pick her up.

The first time she snuck out to go see him.

She remembered the night his Mom died and he told her he wanted to take Octavia and go start over somewhere better.

When her parents died, she said let's do it.

The first time someone got hurt by accident, Clarke cried for three days.

When someone died she walked out the gate of the little home called Arkadia and never came back.

Living off the grid, living with only one purpose in life; live happy.

She hadn’t been happy anymore.

But she wasn’t happy either.

She didn’t like the version of herself that was okay with the chaos.

But she liked the idea of living happy.

Her bed felt so empty. She laid in it in silence, the early light creepy through the blinds. She rarely woke up this early anymore.

He used to wake up at first light to go start working on the farm before the sun was too far above them. He never left without a goodbye, so even though she didn’t need to get up for another two hours, she always woke with him.

She woke up alone now, no purpose in hours of sitting in silence.

Here she was, though.

_ “Here, outside, we may be alone, Clarke. But we’re free. I don’t want to give that up.” _

She found herself looking at long abandoned social media profiles. Anyone she cared to look up didn’t use social media anymore.

Clarke stared at faces she once knew and wished she still did. Raven, Murphy, Emori, Octavia, Lincoln, Jasper, Monty, Harper, Bellamy.

Their profiles were a stark contrast to her own updated and respectable one. A nice picture with her now short hair, a real job listed instead of something rebellious and fake. Updates on her life that she hoped somehow they could see.

She knew they couldn’t, but her love was always selfish.

It was another two weeks until she cracked the code, and she knew where he was.

He’d really found his piece of the world and made a home. Without the need for hurting people to get it.

It was so green.

Better than Arkadia had ever been. Or Camp Jaha. Even the Dropship couldn’t compare.

He found home.

There was a pang of jealousy in her at the thought.

Clarke had a home in the technical sense. She had a place that was hers where she slept, made food, and kept her things.

That was what a home was in the true meaning of the word.

She didn’t tell her boss that she bought a ticket to Georgia when she told him she needed to take a week off.

She didn’t tell him much these days.

_ “What a princess like you doing in a holding pin?” He asked. _

_ “I think my crown might be a little bent.” She answered easily. _

_ “A damaged princess. Interesting.” He said quietly, with a smirk on his face. _

_ “What does that make you, then?” _

_ He sat there quietly for a moment before replying, “The Rebel King.” _

Clarke always wondered what clouds would feel like if she could just reach out and touch them. She watched them from her seat in the plane, trying to block out every thought that was screaming throughout her brain. Like wrecking balls, begging to be heard.

If she went into this, there was no going back. They were still labeled as a terrorist group. Her job would be kissed goodbye whether they wanted her or not, and she’d be completely and utterly alone.

So she packed like she was never coming back.

No matter how this ended, she couldn’t step back into her normal life. 

She couldn’t turn them in.

Clarke would need to just disappear.

Maybe Iceland would be nice.

_ “He died! Bellamy he died and we caused that! I thought we were the good guys! I just want a stupid piece of this planet where I don’t have to worry about the stock market, or the cops, or if you’re going to end up the next dead guy I have to try and save!” Clarke shouted in hysterics. _

_ Bellamy looked at her with a broken expression. This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of it was.  _

_ This wasn’t the plan. _

_ Clarke was shaking and he couldn’t even think of what to say to her at that moment. He didn’t even know what to tell himself. _

_ “Maybe there aren’t any good guys.” Bellamy whispered. _

Clarke banished the thought from her head.

There were good guys. She was sure of it. Her Dad had been a good guy. 

He died too, though.

Everybody dies.

If she was going to die, did it really matter if she was a good guy?

_ “There was a boy, there was a girl. She had a heart, he had a world.” _

She could remember swaying to that song with him in the middle of the night. Young, dumb, and so in love.

Clarke wanted to share the world with him.

It took four hours of driving after landing to reach the outer perimeter of Eden. It was a lush, green, shallow valley. She could make out a farm in the distance, water sources, small houses built by hand, and solar panels to the east.

It was the dream they had always shared. 

A piece of the world where they could just live happy.

_ “Do better, Bellamy.”  _

That was the only note she’d left for him when she left Arkadia so many years ago.

It seemed he’d taken it seriously.

Clarke took out the burner phone that she’d bought at the airport and texted the only number she’d ever bothered to memorize by heart.

_ “Is the Rebel King home?” _

_ “I knew you’d come home.” _


	4. Life 3

Ark Heights was the shittiest apartment building in South Chicago, which Clarke would argue would sit in the top three of shittiest places in the US. If she didn’t love her job, she’d leave, she was sure.

The neighbors were only a bonus.

Jasper and Monty lived down the hall. Far enough that she couldn’t smell the pot smoke all hours of the day, but close enough that she could always dip in for a bag and smoke on the roof in peace like an adult.

On Clarke’s left were Murphy and Emori. Their balconies weren’t connected like with her other neighbor, they were stuck sharing with an older woman who thought Murphy was her husband. So usually Murphy would climb between the two railings and borrow Clarke’s side of the balcony when he needed a smoke break or just some peace and quiet. Sometimes they would sit outside and share a beer. Clarke never thought she’d consider him a friend when she moved in, but these days he’d be high on her list. Emori often joined them, or broke into Clarke’s apartment through the “shitty security proofed” sliding doors when Murphy had driven her crazy. It wouldn’t be unusual to find her in Clarke’s living room when she would come home from work. It was like giving your neighbor a key in case of emergency except she was pretty sure a cop would call it a B&E.

Raven and Wick were right across the hall and they had two moods, fight until they bang, or bang until they fight. They were both geniuses and they knew it, which was just the kind of dangerous chaotic energy that Clarke didn’t necessarily need in her life. But Raven always knew how to talk Clarke down from her worst decisions, and without Wick she wouldn’t have a working heater. She couldn’t complain. Clarke would probably be even more of a disaster without them there, but she didn’t say it outloud. Their ego didn’t need it.

Octavia and Lincoln lived right next door and they shared a balcony that they all used to grow herbs for Lincoln’s alternative medicine practice. Octavia and her had started out as roommates, but after their first year, Octavia had wanted to move in with Lincoln and the apartment right next door was opening up. So Clarke stayed in their two bedroom and Octavia moved to the other side of the wall. She already knew far too much about her sex life but sharing a bedroom wall like this was new.

Harper practically lived with Monty but still had her own apartment on the floor below them. Clarke was pretty sure they just used it for a private place to screw. They were disgustingly in love and just so wholesome that it made Clarke’s heart jilt just a bit. They were the picture of the childhood dream, young and in love. 

Clarke felt like she was in a constant balance between adulthood and her rebellious teens and at twenty eight, she felt too old for that. Maybe this was what people called a mid life crisis.

She sat out on the balcony in the cold, breathing in the toxic smoke of a cigarette. As a resident at the downtown Chicago hospital, she should know better. She did, truly, but decided to do it anyway.

A lot of her life seemed to play out like that.

“Who are you?” A voice asked from Octavia’s side of the balcony and it startled her, almost dropping the cigarette, which would have dropped six stories down. A pity.

“Jesus Christ, are you a spy or something?” Clarke snapped, without much actual anger.

He chuckled and leaned against the railing. It was like tempting fate, this building was old and you never knew when some part of it would fall apart. Her ceiling had been leaking for weeks but the landlord couldn’t be bothered until it actually caved in.

“Maybe in another lifetime,” He said easily. “I’m Octavia’s brother.”

Clarke looked at him in disbelief. The resemblance wasn’t hard to see, but Octavia never once mentioned a brother.

She huffed in disbelief, eyeing him as she took another drag from the cigarette without concern. He didn’t look armed, if anything he looked like how her mind felt most days of the week, a disaster. Ragged and raw, in desperate need a break from the hamster wheel of life.

Harmless enough.

“Clarke, neighbor, friend, whatever. We share the balcony.” Clarke explained, waving without a thought. Their history was messy and too hard to explain in just a few words. 

You can’t exactly tell a stranger that their supposed sister picked you up off the floor on your darkest days and put you back together like a broken plate with super glue. Octavia had no reason to do that for her, but she did.

Life hadn’t always been very kind, but had it ever been?

“Play a game with me, Clarke slash neighbor slash whatever?” He laughed, seeming to truly relax. She smirked but nodded, offering the box of marlboros across the way to share, and he took one carefully with a silent thanks. 

“Ask a question, earn a question. Easy.” Bellamy explained, smoke emphasising the air he breathed in the already cold air and Clarke couldn’t help but be mesmerized by it. It was so simple but the smoke danced in the cold air, with a random stranger in the darkness.

It felt like something out of a grungy indie movie.

“Fine, but I get to go first.” Clarke agreed, waiting for him to nod. 

He did.

“Why has Octavia never mentioned you?”

“I’m part of the life she wishes she could forget.” Bellamy said cryptically. But it was sufficient.

“Who are you? I mean like existentially. Not your job, not what you like, who are you deep down in the ooey gooey parts of you?”

Clarke sat in silence for a moment to consider her answer. It wasn’t something she thought often about. It wasn’t something she really enjoyed thinking about, either.

“I think I’m just someone who is willing to do anything to protect people I love no matter how much it hurts me.” Clarke replied truthfully.

“Yeah, I can say the same,” Bellamy huffed. Ash was dropping to his feet, he looked so tired.

“What are you even doing up right now?” Clarke questioned.

“Are you using that as your official question?” Bellamy joked, hoping to ignore it.

“Well now I am.” Clarke said, tongue in cheek.

He gave her a look that she didn’t really understand. Longing, exhaustion, looking for a person that wasn’t even really in front of him.

“I don’t sleep well, pretty much ever.” Bellamy said, though Clarke could tell there was a lot more to the story than that. “Why are you awake, nosey?” He asked teasingly.

“I actually have a good answer, I work weird shifts. Right now it is my six in the morning today.” Clarke replied with a small smile on her face.

“Looks like I’ll have someone to bother with my insomnia thoughts while I stay here, then.” Bellamy mused with a silly, cocky smile.

“You wish.” Clarke laughed, but if she was honest, she wouldn’t mind.

“One last question, Princess. Do you believe in fate?” Bellamy asked.

She didn’t even think about the princess comment.

“What kind?”

“Destiny.”

“No. There isn’t a God to guide me down some road, there's no bigger reason, there's nothing. We’re all just a joke that aliens laugh at while we kill our own kind. If this is fate, fate is a mean joke.”

He looked more saddened by that than she expected.

“Yee of little faith.”

Clake snorted, “That’s me, nice to meet ya.” 

Bellamy rolled his eyes but his smile stayed.

“You were a princess in another lifetime. Who knows, maybe a lot of other lifetimes. Just a feeling.” He said quietly, flicking his cigarette butt into the ashtray.

“See you later, Clake slash whatever slash princess.”

When he opened the sliding door to Octavia’s apartment and disappeared into it, Clarke let out a sigh. Of relief? Jury is still out.

If she had to describe Bellamy Blake in three words, she’d use “Interesting,” “Weird.” and maybe weird an extra time to be safe.

But she was definitely intrigued.

Bellamy tip toed back into his sister’s apartment, holding his breath in case even his breathing was enough noise to wake up his sister. He didn’t let it go until he was sitting on the guestroom bed in silent darkness.

Time moved so slowly until now. 

Now it was like a rushing flood that never stopped. It hadn’t felt like this until he saw her.

He missed her  _ so _ much.

Bellamy doesn’t think he has ever remembered before. It was like a glitch in the matrix. From the day he could think, he could think of her.

He’d hear the name Clarke and his heart would jump out of his chest. His world would stop spinning and he would remember everything in a giant smash of memories. 

Sometimes he wondered how he could miss someone so much who’d never really met yet.

But hadn’t he?

He didn’t know her in this world, she didn’t know him at all.

But he knew her soul, and he missed that.

He felt so alone in this life. He longed for the times where his sister loved him, wanted him around, where they were close. This time she couldn’t see past the pain and mistakes, and held him at an arm's length. 

He deserved that, it was fair, but it didn’t make it any easier.

No matter where he existed, Bellamy just wanted to protect Octavia. He just never really perfected that craft, not yet. 

There were times that by this age, Bellamy had already figured things out. He wouldn’t be falling asleep alone in a bed he couldn’t call his own, in a city he didn’t belong, without a piece of his heart hiding from him somewhere in the world.

Or right next door.

Destiny often could be cruel, Bellamy had long decided.

He wanted to scream at her, cry in her arms, hold her until their lungs had no air, and kiss her like it was the only way to keep breathing.

It was a cruel joke. He needed her now, but he doesn’t even know her yet.

He’d hoped that when she’d seen him, she’d remember too. Had all along and they could say fuck the rest and just go off together and be happy for one damn time.

But she looked right through him.

He was the part of his life he wanted to forget, that was something he could agree with Octavia about. Maybe he’d tell her over breakfast while she tried to not stab him with a fork.

He missed the weight on the left side of the bed.

He never took her spot.

Bellamy laid down on the right side and let himself drift to sleep, dreaming of another life where things hurt less and she could hold him tightly until morning.

Days passed until Clarke saw her new neighbor.

He was on the balcony again, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt that was far too thin for the weather. His hair was wild and his eyes wet, and he sipped at a beer with a cigarette between his fingers.

She gave him a nod of sympathy when she stepped out in scrubs and an old jacket that's zipper never worked.

They didn’t talk about why he was out there. She could tell he was thankful for that.

“If I told you everything in my head, you’d probably call the police on me or something and I’ll end up in psych for life.” Bellamy deadpanned, drinking his beer, his bitterness exuding off him.

He didn’t want to be here.

Can he just skip this one?

“Are you gonna jump? If you are, it’s better to not tell me anyway. I’m a doctor and they discourage that stuff.” Clarke said, trying to be light.

“No, definitely not, but life is just a mess.”

“Life is a mean, messy, joke,” Clarke agreed, sparking her lighter to light her cigarette.

Octavia hated when she smoked out here, but it’s not like she was going to do it inside.

“Well if you’re not going to jump, just talk. I’m not tired, I don't want to eat cold pizza, and it’s easier to talk to a stranger anyway.” Clarke said simply. It was true. There was nothing inside that made her really want to be there. She liked the friends that surrounded her, but nothing about her life completely tied her down to Earth anymore, like she was spacewalking through life.

After her Dad and Well’s died, and her Mom went to prison, nothing felt that attachment worthy anymore. 

_ A stranger.  _ Bellamy couldn’t help but laugh a bit before he looked at her.

She was always beautiful. Sometimes her hair was long, sometimes short. Sometimes she’d still be bright and unburned by the fire of life, and other times she was already scarred from head to toe. Clarke could change anything about herself and he always found himself head over heals with her until his heart stopped beating.

Then he’d find her again and his heart would start again.

He didn’t understand the math, the science, any of it. How one life could be within the same decade of another, how he could go forwards, then backwards. How sometimes they would get flashes of memories they didn’t understand. Or remember everything.

He just knew that remembering made the weight of it all so much harder to bear.

Bellamy could remember a time where Clarke was on the tip of remembering, just brushing the surface. Painting faces and times they didn’t understand.

This was new. It was cruel.

“What if I told you there was fate, and it was really a bitch?” Bellamy laughed, darkly. Humorless.

Clarke hummed for a second, “If we’re going to have a deep philosophical conversation, I want to get out of my scrubs. Hold my cigarette, I’m going to get changed.”

She wanted the hospital smell off of her, and she had a feeling this would be a long conversation, so she grabbed a beer on her way back.

Clarke returned to her spot on the balcony in a much more comfortable pair of oversized flannel pajama bottoms and an old t-shirt of Well’s that she had cropped years ago. You could still see the top of the band logo and it reminded her of silly memories of being on her best friends shoulders watching their favorite bands on the hottest summer days.

The cold was refreshing against the now exposed skin, after a long day in scrubs and hard work. She desperately needed a shower but wasn’t even sure she could keep her head up to do that.

So she focused on the brother of her friend slash neighbor slash mess on her balcony.

“Tell me there’s fate. So what? I’m going to make the choices I was already going to make, my life will end up just as much of a mess as it already is. What does it change?” Clarke asked, taking her cigarette back from the silent man as she cracked open her shitty can of beer.

Bellamy sat in silence for a while. She crushed two more cigarettes in the ashtray before he spoke again. Even got three more beers and had a bathroom break.

Just sitting in silence and peaceful company.

Something about sitting with someone with no expectations to speak was relaxing. 

The night started to turn to dawn, and the sun started to rise over them.

“What if I told you I already know the answer to my story and I want to skip to the ending?” Bellamy asked, looking at Clarke with an intensity that she didn’t understand.

“The best part of the story is the journey, not the ending.” Clarke answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

“What if the journey has sucked up until now and I just want to get to the good part?” Bellamy asked again, now watching the skyline in front of them. The sun was just peaking out, morning washing over Chicago like a shower. Cleansing what it touched, giving them another day to do better.

“You’re so cryptic.” Clarke laughed, lighting one last cigarette. It was like a timer, once it was done it was time to go to bed. 

“Cryptic keeps people from thinking you’re nuts.” Bellamy replied with a shrug and tug of his smile.

“It’s not working on me.” Clarke chuckled. She pushed her hair back out of her face, the short choppy cut that Raven had given her never seemed to stay out of her face. They’d sworn to not drink and cut their hair at the same time after that.

“My shit never seems to work on you,” Bellamy said softly with a small private laugh.

She looked at him and for a second it felt like she’d known him longer than time itself. It was like seeing hundreds of versions of him all sitting in front of her all at once. Long hair, beard, curls, short cropped hair, muddied and broken, strong and unbreakable.

“I am so sleep deprived. I’ve got to sleep. Talk another time, neighbor slash friend slash Bellamy?” Clarke asked with a small, hopeful smile that she hadn’t expected as she crushed the cigarette flame into the tray.

“You know I’ll be here, Princess.”

Late night conversations bled into day time whispers, and Bellamy had Emori teach him how to unlock the sliding door from the outside. Clarke decided locking the door in the first place was useless.

He laid on her bed one night, eight months from the day Bellamy had come to Chicago, and it felt a lot more like home than it once did.

She never remembered, but that didn’t matter.

There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that there was a tiny golden string tying them together, and she was okay with that.

Life was messy and never perfect. But it was better than Bellamy had ever let himself dream for. 

Ark Heights was home.

She was home for him.

That was enough for him.

  
  


_ “Have you ever felt really close to someone? So close that you can’t understand why you and the other person have two separate bodies, two separate skins?” – Nancy Garden _

  
  
  
  
  



	5. Life 4

Clarke Griffin was like a match to Bellamy’s gasoline covered life. He was always a sucker for lighting himself on fire to keep others warm, and she looked so beautiful in the light of the fire. How was he supposed to resist?

When people asked who Clarke Griffin was to him, he told them various answers, “an addiction”, “bad habit”, “high of a lifetime.”

All of them were so damn true.

That’s how he ended up locked out of his apartment at two in the morning waiting in the hallway, praying that there is a God and he’ll knock some sense into her and let him inside. 

They were in a perpetual cycle of fighting, and then love until the fight came back out. She’s seen every deep dark corner of himself that he hides from the light, and she hasn’t gone running yet. So he definitely wasn’t going to be bailing on her either.

She was chaos, art, and destructive beauty, and it was like staring at the sun.

It made him feel so alive. Why did people need drugs?

Clarke was arguing with Murphy in their living room and had been for two hours about God knows what. He was her best friend, and Bellamy had no idea why. They called themselves the Cockroach club, because neither of them had died yet against all odds.

Sometimes Bellamy just didn’t understand.

He grew up in a regular household for the most part. His Mom worked a lot but did her best, his sister, and him. He went to public school, got into a good college, top of his class in university.

Then he met an artist in a bar with blonde curls and smudged black eyeshadow and a strong opinion on the beer he was drinking, and he was hooked.

It wasn’t a life that he was exactly proud to call home about, but it was a good one. Most of the time, just not when Murphy came and kicked him out of his own bed in the middle of the night to talk to Clarke. Bellamy assumed it was about Emori, because that was what came out of Murphy’s mouth at least seventy-five percent of the time.

When things quieted down, Bellamy came back inside and found the two asleep. Three beer bottles squashed together on the floor by the couch where they both were curled up.

Whatever happened was over now, and he was going to bed. He had to be up for school in the morning, and the kids always think it’s okay to leave if their teacher is late because their college freshman older siblings told them they could.

In all other areas of his life, Bellamy was a stand up respectable guy, he would like to think. He taught history at the local high school, he helped out with at risk projects, he even watched his nephew for Octavia while she was easing back into work post baby.

Most people just ignored that he was banging/pining for/praising the eclectic art teacher on the second floor.

Clarke wasn’t the girl you brought home for a healthy normal Christmas. Then again, Clarke had decided that Christmas was meaningless for her anyway a long time ago. So he’d visit his family alone while Clarke and Murphy stayed in together drinking the winter break away.

Murphy was the shop teacher at the high school and his classroom was connected to the art room since they had some overlapping equipment. In the beginning, Bellamy felt jealous of Murphy. But then Emori started student teaching under Raven for their mechanics class, and it was like Murphy’s world stopped on its axis. 

They thought like wet cats, and screwed like cats in heat. So they fit rather well, if Bellamy was thinking about it.

Bellamy draped a blanket over the pair, kissed the top of Clarke’s head, and walked back to their bedroom and slept in their bed alone that night.

They didn’t get much of a chance to talk until their lunch break at work the next day. Clarke was sitting at her desk with her bagged lunch, looking a lot more put together than the night before. Her hair was curled and had tinges of color from when she let Emori experiment on it. Her dress was respectable, but it made him feel a bit crazy. Everything about her made him crazy, though.

The way she’d paint at four in the morning with a cigarette behind her ear that she never seemed to light. Or how she danced to hipster softy songs in the kitchen when she thought no one was listening. The way she’d whisper his name against his skin and he’d feel like he was home.

Miller always warned him that loving her would destroy him. Bellamy didn’t really doubt it. Clarke wasn’t someone who stuck around forever, her spirit wasn’t connected to land like everyone else's. 

Sometimes he envied that.

His sister could be like that sometimes.

Sometimes he could understand why Lincoln was the way he was.

Loving someone with that much freedom in their soul makes you a cautious man.

“Emori said yes.” Clarke said casually, opening up her lunch bag, offering him the apple from the top.

“To what?” Bellamy asked, taking the apple without thinking, taking a large bite. He was pretty sure he forgot the lunch she packed for him on the counter.

She always made him lunch. Holding notes with hearts, x’s and o’s, and small doodles of them together on the bright yellow of the sticky note.

He kept every single one in a box in their closet.

She pretended she didn’t notice.

“Murphy proposed.” Clarke deadpanned, as if it were obvious.

“And.. What was he doing yelling for over two hours in our living room?” He questioned, his eyebrow ticked up in intrigue. Any time he tried to understand them, he only ended up with more questions than any answers.

“He had a moment, cold feet, and I told him he was an idiot. We fought about it for a while, he got over it, he had a few beers and we knocked out. Sorry about that, by the way.” Clarke said with a sympathetic frown on her face.

She knew she was messy. She was a complication that most people wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. She had all the giant warning signs that boys talk about. Daddy issues, mommy issues, against the system issues, just… issues. 

But Bellamy always came crawling back for his fix. 

There was a flick of blue paint in that soft spot of her neck below her ear and he couldn’t help but smile. 

Clarke looked nervous but smiled anyway, “Having a life together permanently wouldn’t be horrible.”

Bellamy snorted, “If the idea sounded horrible, I would have never moved in.”

“Cool.” Clarke said short and cool with an emotionless smile before she picked up her phone that hadn’t vibrated, “I need to go talk to Murphy and Emori. Wedding shit already, you know. But meet me in the parking lot after you finish today?”

Bellamy looked at her questioningly but ignored it.

She moved quickly and left him with an apple and his thoughts.

Did she want him to propose? It’s not that he was against it, but Clarke never seemed like the marriage kind of girl. They had only lived together for eight months, but had been together for two, known each other for four.

It wasn’t that far of a stretch.

He would like to buy a house first, save for a proper wedding, actually propose, plan it all out. Do it the right way for her. He wanted her to have the life she never thought she could. 

Bellamy obsessed about it all day until he was sitting in their car waiting for Clarke to meet him in the parking lot to leave for the day.

He started calling when she was ten minutes late, thinking she must have got sucked into a painting and forgot what time it was.

Bellamy started looking after twenty minutes of silence.

She wasn’t in her classroom, Murphy’s, or Emori’s. Raven had already left for the day and locked their office up.

Teachers lounge was deserted.

He found Murphy in the cafeteria, breaking the lock to the dessert fridge.

“Report me and I’ll make your life hell, Blake.”

Bellamy rolled his eyes, but he knew that Murphy could easily kick him out of his own bed for a sleepover with his girlfriend every night for the next month.

Emori always joked that it was chaotic Clurphy energy. She wasn’t far off. But she wasn’t getting kicked out of bed, either. Bellamy always thought he got the short end of the stick on this foursome. Kicked out of his own bed for Murphy to come bitch about Emori, and vice versa. They drank all of his beer, enjoyed the overpriced mattress, and stole his girl. It’s just rude.

“I don’t care if you want an extra cup of jello, I can’t find Clarke. Checked everywhere and she’s not answering the phone.”

Murphy had an instant look of panic that he tried to reign in, but not nearly quick enough.

“What’s wrong?” Bellamy asked, worried and upset that Murphy just chose to ignore the fact that he cared about Clarke even more than he did.

“Dude I am not the one giving you the news. Staff bathroom, Emori’s outside trying to talk Clarke out. I’m getting  _ pudding _ as a bribe, thank you. I’m offended you thought I wanted the shit jello.” Murphy huffed as the lock finally broke, letting the fridge fly open. He grabbed two servings of chocolate pudding, and shoved a brownie into Bellamy’s hands after his own filled. “I got a fiancee to impress, fuck off.”

They both walked towards the staff bathroom at a fast pace, Murphy juggling the pudding in his hands.

Just as Murphy had said, Emori was outside the bathroom with a frustrated, upset look on her face. 

Murphy looked disappointed, and looked at Bellamy expectantly as he eyed the brownie.

Bellamy gave Emori a weak smile as he handed her the brownie and she looked grateful.

Murphy pounded on the door with his elbow, “I’ve got two chocolate pudding, wanna let me in now?”

The door unlocked and opened just enough to see a sliver of Clarke before she slammed it back shut, “I told you no Bellamy!” She shouted, snapping the door locked again.

“He’s worried about your dumbass, you didn’t leave. Where else would he be?” Murphy snarked back, kicking the door. 

“Tell him what I said, Emori!” Clarke shouted again, sounding even more upset. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was crying. He didn’t even know what was going on. He’d woken up this morning to utter normal, and it was ending it chaos.

“Um... “ Emori trailed off, looking at Bellamy with a nervous expression. She gave John a look that said  _ bad idea. _

“She’s knocked up and hormonal, okay? If you don’t want it, you can leave and we’ll help her, if you want to stay, you’re welcome to.” Murphy snapped, still holding two chocolate puddings in hand.

Panic was the first word that Bellamy could find to describe how he was feeling.

She didn’t want him to propose. She was pregnant.

Murphy snorted when he saw Bellamy’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

“You’re the one that stuck it in crazy, dude. You know how babies are made.” Murphy laughed, rolling his neck to release the tension all the stress was causing. He took the plastic top of one of the puddings and dipped his finger in for a quick taste.

“It tastes so good, Clarke! Chocolate!” He shouted.

“She has an implant!” Bellamy whisper-shouted, hoping that Clarke couldn’t hear his panic.

“They call it ninety-nine percent effective for a reason.” Emori added, not so helpfully, as she bit into the brownie with glee.

“Look, Bellamy. There’s absolutely no good time for a baby. If you don’t want it, bail out now. We’ll handle this. But if you want to stay, then remember where your balls are and tell her.” Murphy said cooly, taking another lick of pudding loudly in hopes of tempting Clarke out.

She must be really hormonal if Murphy thinks chocolate pudding is enough to get Clarke Griffin out of a room that she doesn’t want to leave.

“Princess, you listening? I’ll take the door down if I have to. I don’t think Principal Kane would be super happy about it. You’d rather get an extra long maternity leave for being the best art teacher ever and Shake Shack on the way home, right?” Bellamy asked with a small, silly smile. Kane loved Clarke, she could get a year sabbatical without even batting her eyelashes at him.

“This is the end of the world and you’re offering me Shake Shack?” Clarke yelled back at him through the door and he sighed. 

“Of course I thought of Shake Shack,” Murphy grumbled unhelpfully as he really started to dig into his pudding. He’d slidden down to sit next to Emori on the tile floor, letting her dip her brownie into the chocolate sludge. 

“Does she really think that I’m going to leave?” Bellamy asked quietly, eying the couple.

“Give me a good reason why you won’t and not that it’s your kid because honestly in this world, that doesn’t really mean that much. Why do you pick her? Because she sure as shit doesn’t know why and she thinks this is game over for her.” Murphy said seriously, vibrating with a silent anger. He saw the way he calmed as Emori slipped her hand over his arm with a warm shushing sound. 

“Do you pick her? Or do you pick the baby? Or are you picking her because there is a baby? Would you pick her if she decided she couldn’t do this?” Emori asked and a calm, soft tone.

Bellamy let his back slide against the wood of the door, letting the silence echo in his head.

She didn’t even know. He’s been with her all this time and she doesn’t even know.

_ “Don’t feel bad about leaving me here.” _

The tiniest whisper in Bellamy’s brain made him think for a moment. Clarke’s relationships in life pretty much always ended. They either died, or left her all alone. He thinks about the snarky comments she makes about Murphy on days where they’ve had a bad fight and she says that  _ he’s off with his other best friend.  _ When Emori cancels their last minute plans and Clarke frowns for just a second too long. 

She doesn’t trust anyone to stay.

Bellamy turns his head into the door to speak, “My Mom doesn’t really like you. She thinks you’re too much drama. I told her you had fire and it made me feel alive. She thinks eventually I’ll be so burnt that there’s nothing to keep the fire alive. I didn’t leave when she said that. Octavia likes you a lot, but she doesn’t think we’ll last. She worries the same about her and Lincoln, though. They’re married and have a whole ass kid that talks. I didn’t leave when she said that, either.” Bellamy started, trying to keep his tone light and silly, making sure it didn’t come across wrong. He couldn’t see anything else, just the door, the whole world disappeared. 

“Those people are pretty high on my list, you know that. So I’m not going to leave you for something stupid. I definitely won’t leave you if you’re pregnant, and not for some messed up codependent reason. I don’t want to be anywhere that you aren’t, and if that means we have a baby? Sign me up. But I’d rather not hyphenate the names, it’s a mouthful. It’d be easier if we had the same last name, but that’s not something to worry about right now--” The door shifted against his weight and he started falling back and fell back into the soft skin that he’d memorized in the dark every chance he could.

“Your Mom has bad taste in art but a very insightful view of people.” Clarke mumbled with a silly tone. 

Bellamy breathes a sigh of relief. “You said you loved the stuff she picked out at your show!” He chuckled. 

“Can I plead the fifth?” Clarke whispered, and he just nodded. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight. 

“There’s a baby inside of you.” Bellamy laughed, a sob ripping through him. It hit him when he saw the boxes of pregnancy tests on the bathroom floor. Multiple tests that all had small pink plus signs on them.

“Yeah, what do you want to do about that?” Clarke asked nervously.

“Don’t let me give it a mythology name, Octavia made me promise when we were kids.”

  
  


Bellamy didn’t think about how worth it had been, to tell Clarke that his Mother didn’t really like her all that much, until he was thirty seven on Christmas morning. Twelve long, hard, imperfect years that he wouldn’t trade for anything.

He had two kids that looked at him like he was a superhero. He had the house on the nice side of town that he always dreamed of. Married to the crazy art teacher who always kept his fire burning.

His Mom sat in the recliner with Madi on her lap, feeling completely at home in her daughter in laws house. Augustus was pulling on the hair of Octavia and Lincoln’s youngest while Clarke gently scolded him and told him that babies were sensitive and they needed soft touches.

Bellamy felt like a fire that could burn for millennials.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> considering making this a full fic, any thoughts?


	6. Life 5

The end of the world was so obscenely quiet that it was practically screaming at Clarke at all hours of the day.

The world hadn’t ended in one solid clap. It was more like an ocean, slowly rising until they were swallowed. First, people started getting sick. The economy collapsed all around the world. Food began to be so hard to find or buy that most starved.

When the violence and riots started, it got worse. You weren’t just hungry, or scared of being sick, you were scared of getting hurt or killed. 

Soon illness wiped out most of mankind, but violence took care of the rare few immune to the illness.

As far as Clarke had seen, she was the last person out there. When she could manage to get things working enough to check the internet, she never saw any sign of anyone out there. She’d traveled most of North and South America at this point and hadn’t seen a soul.

It was lonely.

But Clarke couldn’t help but be in awe of a silent world full of possibilities. 

She sat in the middle of Times Square in absolute silence. She stood in the White House and pretended she was the president. Clarke climbed tall buildings that once were big corporations, now just empty builds with meaningless files and cash that did her little good.

Clarke wanted to find another still-stocked fast food restaurant and eat food that has been frozen since the world ended.

Six years surviving off whatever she could find, or kill, was exhausting. She still craved Monday night tacos with Raven.

She missed Raven.

She missed her parents. She missed everyone she’d ever laid eyes on. She missed the sound of another person's voice. 

Well, she thought she did, until she heard a man screaming at the far side of the valley she called her home. It was far from the rest of the world, peaceful.

That didn’t stop Clarke from leaving traps. You couldn’t be too careful, apparently.

She held the rifle tight to her as she ran towards the sound of his screaming, and froze in place when she finally saw him.

He didn’t look sick, or dangerous, he just looked alone

Like her.

“Who the hell are you?” Clarke shouted with her gun pointed at his chest. The man looked terrified and threw his hands up in defense.

“Don’t shoot! I didn’t know anyone was here!” He reasoned through his agony.

“I  _ asked _ who you are!” She repeated, sounding more angry than she was. If anything she thought that the fear would swallow her whole.

This was worse than when she got lost in that desert for a month and nearly pulled the trigger.

Way worse than when she found her childhood home torn apart and scavenged by strangers, taking anything of value while she lived across the country.

Whoever had done it, walked around her parents bodies to steal their things.

The only thing she could find that she cared about was her father's old, broken watch. 

It didn’t matter that it was broken, time didn’t mean much during the end of the world.

“My name is Bellamy Blake! I’m from North Carolina and you are the first person I’ve seen since my sister died!”

Clarke flinched at that. She didn’t mean to, but she did. She was sure he could tell, because he kept going.

“I just travel! I have a temporary camp set up two miles south, I was just looking for water for the night!”

Clarke sighed. She couldn’t exactly kill the last guy on Earth when he was standing here in front of her.

Instead, she let the rifle drop and she freed him from the bear trap that claimed his leg. He leaned on her as they hobbled back to Clarke’s cabin where she could clean up and stitch his wounds.

She’d rather not be the reason she really was the last person on Earth.

He slept through two days, and Clarke started to worry that infection was getting to him. But he wasn’t hot, the wound was clean and dry.

He was simply exhausted.

“Been there,” She mumbled to herself as she changed his bandages again that night.

“Where?” He mumbled, his voice dry and raw.

She scrambled for a canteen of drinking water, “You’re alive!”

“I was kind of hoping this was heaven, but alive is fine.”

She could definitely understand that sentiment.

The next morning when he awoke again, he swore he’d leave the valley once he could stand.

Clarke didn’t mention for three weeks until he was back to walking and holding his weight steady.

“You could stay, if you wanted. The valley is big, and you wouldn’t have to work alone.” She said simply, trying to keep her tone even.

He sat there with a smirk on his face, “I wouldn’t mind it, terribly.”

He slept on the right side of the bed, and she never brought up the idea of building Bellamy his own cabin, and neither did he.

It was the end of the world, two people can share a bed without it being weird.

They tried to avoid talking about the before. There was so much pain to unpack. The end of life as they knew it, the death of everyone they’d ever known and loved. Their futures disappeared like dust and all they had was survival and today.

She knew he liked history and mythology. He knew she was a good artist and could stitch up a wound without blinking.

He knew she snored, and she knew that he kept that to himself.

She knew there was a small scar on his chin from rough housing with his sister as a kid, and a long thin scar on his abdomen from the beginning of the uprising.

He knew where the burns had licked her skin from a building fire during one of the first riots in DC, and the small mark on her thumb where she’d accidentally burned herself in chemistry class in high school.

His light freckles made her think of the stars they would watch at night. They were so much clearer now than they had been as a kid. She could actually see what Bellamy called Perseus. At least she thought she did.

Clarke liked the firm, warm, comfort that the weight on the right side of the bed gave her. 

She wasn’t the only person on Earth anymore.

She liked that it was him giving the bed the extra weight, but that wasn’t a thought that she shared with her company. 

They formed a routine over time. Bellamy would check traps in the woods during the morning while Clarke hiked for their water at the waterfall twenty minutes from the cabin. During lunch they’d sit outside at an old metal table they’d found with mismatched chairs, eating in relative silence.

It wasn’t the same as the silence before she met him. It was comfortable, warm like an old blanket in front of a fire.

By nightfall most of their chores were complete for the day and they’d hover around the home trying to find something to do. More often than not, they sat on opposite sides of the cabin with Bellamy reading another scavenged book while Clarke drew faces of every person she could remember.

Bellamy would describe Octavia in the dark where it felt like their words didn’t hold the same weight as the harsh light of day. She didn’t bring it up when she left a small drawing of a girl on his workshop desk with brown hairs and a beautiful smile. He didn’t either, but he hugged her tight to his chest that night when the light had died around them.

He’d been overwhelmingly warm, smelled like pine and definitely could do with a quick dip in the water. She loved every second of it.

She tried to worm her way into his hug at night, every night, after that.

It was a year of a fine balance between friendship and more.

“What were you doing when the world ended?” Bellamy asked, seemingly out of the blue.

Clarke sat in silence for a moment to think about it, “I was nineteen. Sophomore year of college when it all started.”

“I was twenty three. It was my first year teaching middle school history classes.” Bellamy commented solemnly. 

“I never thought I’d make it to the end of an apocalypse movie,” Clarke shrugged with a small smile, hoping to lighten the mood just a touch.

“Me either. I always thought Octavia could, though.”

Today was the anniversary of his sister's death and she’d forgotten.

“She was always a badass from the day she was born. She signed up for karate the day our mom let her. Was always such a brave kid, through all the bullshit. She survived so much shit and then died in an accident  _ after _ the world ended. It’s a joke!”

Octavia’s death was a tragedy. She lived long enough to see everyone around her die including the love of her life, except for her brother, only to die from an infection. A small burn killed her in the end.

“My parents died early,” Clarke started, shocking herself. She hadn’t spoken about them outloud in years. “They got sick, died at home. By the time I got there, they’d already looted the place.” 

She left out the fact that people have scavenged her home with her parents still dead inside. It wouldn’t be of any help to anyone.

“Only thing left was my Dad’s watch. It can’t tell time, but it tells me every day how much he loved me.” Clarke finished, raising her left wrist to show off the broken, worn watch.

“Were you alone after that?” Bellamy asked, avoiding eye contact. She didn’t take it to heart.

“My friend Raven was still alive. But she died in the DC riot.” Clarke said simply, finding her explanation suitable.

“I don’t know how to feel like a person again.” He admitted, eyes shut tight as if he was imagining he was somewhere else. She did that a lot.

“I think we just take one breath, and then another.”

“I should be angry, but I can’t feel a fucking thing.” Bellamy replied, sounding so broken and raw. It was such a contrast to the Bellamy she saw every day.

It wasn’t a bad thing.

“Tell me a secret. Nothing depressing, happy secrets.” Clarke said, trying to bring a warm smile to his face. She loved his smile. It was such a rare thing to witness and every time felt like she’d stared right at the sun.

And then he smiled.

“I think about something embarrassing sometimes.” Bellamy said sheepishly.

Clarke smiled coyly, “And what’s that?”

“If we’d met before the end of the world, do you think you would have chosen me to be the person you shared the planet with?”

Clarke didn’t even need to consider it for a second.

“I don’t know, but I know I choose you now. I choose you every day from the day I met you, till the day I die.”

He seemed okay with her answer.

She held him tight that night and didn’t comment on the silent sobs that wrecked his form. They never commented on the things that happened in the dark, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to face each other during the day.

It wouldn’t be great to not be able to face the only person she was left with.

It was when he kissed her in the light that they had to talk about it.

“What if it goes horribly and we hate each other and you leave?” Clarke tried to reason.

She felt like she could picture a life in this valley alone, and she didn’t like the image. 

“What if it’s great?”

“That’s irrational and you know it. I am not ruining my relationship with the only person in my life just to fuck!”

Bellamy sighed, “If it was just for a fuck, I wouldn’t have kissed you. Think big brain thoughts, Princess. You’re scared of losing me, but guess what? I will find superglue in some abandoned mall and glue us together if I have to. You’re stuck with me.”

They didn’t think about the before anymore, years behind them now.

Clarke didn’t dream about going back to college like everything was normal. Or of the faces of everyone she lost. She only dreamed of Bellamy, their family that they built, and the tiny stretch of Earth they called home.

For the end of the world, it wasn’t too bad after all.

  
  
  
  



	7. Life 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: grieving, major character death (temporary), bad coping mechanisms.

Bellamy laid on the shitty motel bed, unmoving, for eight days. Staring at the ceiling hoping for the world to start making sense again. But it never did. It was always just as confusing and heartbreaking that was when he started. Things used to make sense. 

He had had a rather uneventful but good life up until that day that he watched the news. Went to school, got the good job that made your Mom proud and she would tell everyone at Thanksgiving that  _ their son  _ was a mechanical engineer. He’d just watched Octavia graduate from college last month. He was supposed to walk her down the aisle in six.

Octavia had always pushed that she needed an extra bridesmaid, hoping Bellamy would have a girlfriend by the time the wedding was in full swing. Dating just never interested him. It’s not that he didn’t get lonely, or want to be with someone. But no one felt right, and he wasn’t going to waste his time on the wrong girl when he could be doing something good for the world.

He spent two years in the Peace Corps helping breakdown development on a new water system in Uganda, and was planning on doing another service when he turned on the news, and Clarke Griffin’s face was staring back at him.

Staff Sergeant Clarke Griffin declared dead after a medical evacuation went south. She was the only casualty. She was given a purple heart and would be having a military funeral somewhere in Washington DC, where she was from. 

He hadn’t known her until she saw her face in the news, and then it all came crashing on his shoulders like bombs falling from the sky. Leaving his entire life in ruins. Memories were thrown at him like flashbacks, things so visceral and real that they couldn’t be imagined. The way a sword sounded when it clanged against another. The sweet sound of a newborn crying for their Mom for the first time. The disappointed looks when he would forget to take out the trash before garbage day. How the sea smelled on an early morning, and how it felt under his feet. Her soft skin touching his, her lips that always seemed to taste of cherry no matter the situation. 

Drinking never was something Bellamy Blake enjoyed. He didn’t enjoy it now, either, but Clarke Griffin was dead. Now sounded like a good time to learn to enjoy it. 

The next three weeks were a blur, if he was honest. There were memories that pop out at him and scream with shame. Taking his diploma off his Mother’s wall and burning wasn’t his best moment. Neither was screaming at just about anyone who would listen that they just  _ didn’t understand what he was going through. _

But what does it matter?

It all leads back to the fact that Bellamy is laying on a shitty motel bed, staring at the ceiling, begging it for answers like it could actually speak to him.

And Clarke Griffin was dead and would be dead for the rest of his life. He never even got the chance to meet her.

Octavia would come by to force water into his mouth, and food down his throat. Sometimes she talked to herself angrily about the things Bellamy did during those three weeks. Sometimes she talked to him, tried to get him to snap out of it.

It never worked.

Alcohol certainly didn’t help, but laying here sober with nothing but his thoughts and memories he couldn’t hold in his hands like a reality, was going to drive him to the edge.

At least he understood why no one ever seemed interesting to him. All he wanted and needed was her.

But she was gone, and he was stuck here miserable and alone.

“Do you ever wonder if soulmates are real?” Bellamy whispered, talking for the first time since he came into this room against his will to sober up. 

Octavia looked at him with a strange expression, “What? The perfect person is out there for you? Yeah sometimes I like to think so.”

“What about multiple life times?”

Octavia laughed just a little bit at that, “No, not that. But who knows, maybe there is more out there that I don’t understand. What’s going on with you, big brother?”

Bellamy stared at the hotel ceiling for another long moment, trying to look past the simple white and see other worlds beyond this one. Where she was smiling, dancing, breathing. 

It was a ghost of a comfort that he couldn’t really explain.

“I think I missed out on something really fucking great, O, and I can’t change it.” Bellamy replied hoarsely. 

Octavia moved to his bedside, and the weight on the mattress gave him the smallest comfort, but another colossal wave of grief. 

Clarke liked the left side of the bed. She always did. Whether they were on high seas, the forest, or the warm comfort of a simple bland life.

He wouldn’t feel her weight on her side of the bed for the rest of his life. This one, anyway.

“Bellamy, get knocked down, get back up. This isn’t over, whatever it is. You can fix it.”

Octavia was both horribly wrong and completely right all at once. 

He couldn’t bring her back. She’s buried in some plot somewhere, gone. There was absolutely nothing to fix that. And as far as Bellamy was aware, time travel was not a thing. 

But he would live again and find her, then never let her go.

“Maybe I can’t. But I’m just going to have to live with that, won’t I?”

He said goodbye to the ceiling in another three days. He swore he could see her smiling down at him when he finally rolled out of the bed, legs unsteady from the disuse. 

Getting back into the rhythm of a normal life seemed impossible. Everything he did, everything he touched, or thought, brought him back to Clarke. The smell of burnt toast and shitty coffee. The stars always seemed so much brighter now, maybe she was lighting up the sky just for him. He always liked looking at the stars.

Octavia didn’t say much when she noticed it took three glasses of whiskey from him to get himself to sleep these days. At least he wasn’t self destructing anymore. It took a bit of groveling to get her forgiveness, but he earned it.

Sometimes he’d stay up into the early hours in the morning, screaming at Clarke, crying for her, and counting his breaths wondering how many more he had to take until she was back.

He didn’t go on another service for the Peace Corps as planned.

He walked Octavia down the aisle with a hollow smile on his face, and watched her start her new life. Right before he drove down to the recruiting office for the U.S. Army.

His Mother about lost her mind when he came home in a uniform and told her he was going to basic. She didn’t understand the change. No matter how many times he tried to explain that he owed this to her.

His Mom didn’t know Clarke, and most likely thought her son would fail the psych exam before they ever shipped him out.

Bellamy laid under the stars in a base in the middle of nowhere. It reminded him of Uganda. But the stars didn’t hold the same possibilities that they once had, though they were just as bright as when he remembered Clarke for the first time. He used to sit for hours at night picking out constellations and now all he could think about was how she couldn’t see them now.

So he watched for her.

He finished what she started. 

He kept breathing, because if he didn’t, there was no hope. 

When he finally stopped breathing, everything was so bright. It was overwhelming, blinding, surreal.

Then he was in the middle of a park, like nothing had even happened. He was a younger version of himself. Less scarred and broken. His hair was shorter and curled at the ends, and his beard traded for a clean shave. His heart didn’t feel like it was held together with tape and glue anymore.

Far across the park there was a bench, so he started walking. 

And then, running.

She was waiting for him. She was always waiting for him, and never would stop.

Drawing on a sketchbook in her lap, looking so content. Like it was just another beautiful day in the park.

When she saw him running, she smiled like it was the best day of her life.

They collided like two magnets, always searching for their opposite, useless without it.

“I missed you so much.”

He wasn’t sure if he said it or her. They were talking over each other at a pace so fast his brain couldn’t even take in the words.

“I’ve never waited so long for someone before,” Clarke sobbed into her chest, holding him tight like it was the only thing keeping him there. 

Then he kissed her, and there was a beautiful silence that Bellamy wouldn’t mind for the rest of his life. 

Afterlife? 

He held her in his arms for what felt like hours, and it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, that he was sure of it. He could remember hundreds of lifetimes with this girl and it wasn’t enough. Every second was a precious gift. He drank it in like expensive wine, savoring it. Pretending he understood every note of it all.

If he was honest, this was something he would never understand.

He just knew that Clarke Griffin was his forever.

“It’s almost time for you to leave again,” Clarke mumbled into his neck sadly. 

“What do you mean?” Bellamy asked in a panic. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted the cycle to end. He was tired. He was ready to just rest.

“We haven’t figured it all out yet, Bellamy. Time for round two hundred and sixty one. You’re older, you have to go first.” She explained with a sad smile, like she’d been preparing to say this to him for a long time.

“I don’t want to do it all again, Clarke. I can’t. I just want to stay here, in this park with you, until time ends. Doesn’t that sound good?” He asked, pleading, holding her tightly so she couldn’t step away.

She gave him a broken smile, “Can’t do that until we figure it all out, Bellamy.”

“Figure what out?” He shouted, refusing to move. 

“How to do better. We do better, and we keep doing better until we get it right.”

It didn’t seem like he had much of a choice, because it felt like everything around him was fading. It was too soon. He wasn’t ready.

“I need more!”

“You’ll get more, just find me faster this time, a girl gets tired of waiting for Prince Charming,” She said teasingly, her lip quivering as she faded out from his touch. They both faded out like a quiet echo that never truly existed.

A tiny wail came into the world, and Bellamy Blake was born on August eighth, nineteen eighty-eight. 

Somewhere across the world, for the first time, Clarke Griffin took her same breath at the exact same moment. 

A break in the cycle. 

Was it a miscalculation? Or fate trying to edge them on to their happy ending?

An eternity with the beautiful blonde, in a park somewhere in the stars.


	8. Life 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> major character death (temporary)
> 
> unrelated warning: I'm pregnant and the brain fog is insane, I may be a bit slow at updates but they will come!

Clarke was lying in her bed late that night when she first saw him. Just a flicker of form, and then nothing. She would have thought it was just a trick of the light if it hadn’t happened again, and again.

So when Clarke looked into the mirror this morning, expecting to see her own face, but was met with a tall tanned man in the middle of his morning shave… She wasn’t shocked. Clarke was pretty sure it meant that she had completely lost her mind, but not shocked at the idea of that either. It wasn't like Clarke was the picture of perfect self care. She was far too good at staying awake for forty-eight hours straight and living off cold brew coffee.

The guy in the mirror was definitely shocked, though. He let out a less than impressive yelp before disappearing like a ghost.

Great, even her hallucination didn’t want to be her friend.

She’d moved to the United Kingdom to study at Oxford University with the delusion it would make her mother proud. Except now she was lonely in a country she’d never been to prior, with hallucinations, or ghosts, or whatever. Four years into a six year medical program before she could call even herself a real doctor.

Either way, Europe was not what it was cracked up to be. Definitely did not live up with any other delusions her mind had cooked up, apparently.

The next time her hallucination made a full body appearance was in an intro to World History and Politics class that most first year students took. Clarke was mostly only doing clinical hours and a few advanced medical classes at this point of her training, but she did poorly her first year in history and needed to get a better average.

This time he was silent, listening to the professor speak. He took a look at her notes and scoffed, picking up her pen to take over her notes.

She wordlessly looked around, hoping someone would either be looking at her hallucination, or looking at her like she’d lost her mind.

Except no one was doing either.

He made small comments here and there under his breath, correcting the professor when he felt the need to. At least he was passionate about history, because she certainly wasn’t.

Later at the hospital she showed her notes to Finn, her boyfriend and only person in the United Kingdom that seemed to remember she existed.

All he told her was they were amazing notes, nothing like her usual style, and that she should teach him how to do it as well.

The hallucination reappeared next to Finn and gave her a resounding “ _No_.” before leaving again.

But then the next second she was laying in the grass, staring up at a dark sky with rain showering her. It was like a cleansing storm, washing away all the weight she dragged around with her every day. Her clothes were soaking through, and there were water droplets all over her face.

“Where the hell am I?”

She felt movement to her side and her head snapped to look in that direction, just to be faced with him.

“Seattle, Washington, the US.”

“I’ve never been here. I’m from DC, but live in the UK for college…” Clarke said quietly to herself.

She really has lost it, hasn't she? There was just no possibility this was real. But the ground felt so solid beneath her, and the wind whipping against her wet skin was biting and _real_.

“Why are you laying on the ground in the rain?” Clarke wondered out loud, but not moving. Something about it felt so pure, so freeing. Like she could float the rest of the way through life without old burdens on her back.

“Why not?”

Clarke supposed that was a fair answer. Why not? It's not like she ever had good reason for every single thing she did during the day.

The park they were at was so green and the air tasted fresh. He told her it was Seaward Park, but he lived somewhere less green and less pretty.

“Too bad,”

“Yeah,” He agreed, “Too bad.”

She was back inside the hospital like no time had passed at all, and she longed for the feeling of wet clothes, grass prickling her skin, and the warmth against her side where he once laid.

When she woke up in prison, she was terrified.

Until she realized it wasn’t her that was actually confined to the cell.

“ _Another_ one of you? Seriously? You’d think I’d get a little peace in solitary.” The girl barked out, startling her.

She was beautiful, and looked absolutely exhausted. Long brown hair with messy braids, bags under her eyes. The room felt miserably small, and empty. She sat on a mat in the middle of a concrete room in a prison uniform.

“I didn’t mean to come here.” Clarke replied weakly.

“I’m sure you didn’t, but can you just leave me alone right now?”

“I don’t know how.”

The girl huffed in annoyance and stared directly at Clarke like she was the biggest problem in her world.

“My name is Clarke.” She offered with a tiny shrug.

“Octavia.” The girl answered, and it felt like Clarke was pushed right out of the cell into her own body.

She couldn’t help but think in the silence of her bedroom, that her own four walls felt just as trapping as the walls of Octavia’s cell.

Clarke’s day dragged on for what felt like multiple days. All technical talk went in one ear and out the other. When Finn was trying to plan their dinner, she let him book a fancy French restaurant in London, and she didn’t even like that type of thing. She’d rather go home with some takeout and watch a movie. They didn’t tend to do things Clarke’s way very often.

She was shocked this time, though, when her hallucination made an appearance, took a bite of her food and made a disgusted face. So she stared right across the table at Finn, who noticed nothing. Clarke scowled to herself in a way that felt all too petty for an adult.

“Why date him if you don’t even like him?” The man asked.

Clarke’s eyes went wild, and suddenly they were in a small bedroom and the morning light was breaking through the blinds. He was laying on the bed in the same clothes he had been wearing in the restaurant just seconds before, flannel pajama pants and a loose fitting t-shirt.

“Who says I don’t like him? He’s a perfectly decent guy!” Clarke argued and the man's eyebrow ticked up in amusement.

“You’re here with me in Seattle when you could be in a fancy French restaurant in London. It’s not a leap of faith.”

Clarke looked at him with distaste, “At least the other girl told me her name before kicking me to the curb.”

“Oh, you’re seeing others now. It’s about to get real fun now.” He took her hand into his like he was getting ready to run. But they stayed absolutely still.

The world changed around her with a snap, and they were in the middle of a marijuana grow in a giant warehouse. It stank, was dreadfully warm, and everything felt itchy when standing amongst that many plants.

“Monty! Jasper!” He shouted. She noticed a makeshift office area close to them, and assumed that’s where they were headed.

“Where are we?”

“Colorado, it’s legal in many states now.” He joked, his hands gesturing to all the plants around them. She couldn't help but notice how large his hands were. One day she wanted to draw them.

“Bellamy!” Another man's voice rang out and he looked away.

Bellamy, his name must be Bellamy.

She tried not to think about how well it sounded in her head.

Clarke got a glimpse of the two men coming towards her before she snapped back to reality, with Finn waving a hand in front of her face to catch her attention.

“Princess, are you in there?” Finn asked with a flash of concern on his face.

“Oh he calls you princess? It’s on, buddy.” Bellamy said, sitting next to her.

Clarke thought she was going to lose her mind.

Or already had.

How does that work, exactly?

“Sorry, just a long weird day. I’m going to go to the bathroom, okay?” Clarke excused herself, pushing back from the table a little too harshly.

She was eternally grateful that the bathroom was empty when she closed the door in Bellamy’s face.

Clarke was overwhelmed, tired, and probably needed to be committed.

Then she heard crying in one of the stalls that sounded like echos, dragging her closer. When she pushed open the door, she saw Octavia sitting on the floor of the stall, still in her prison uniform.

Clarke could feel every ounce of her pain and she thought she was going to drown in it all. It was like there was a ghost of a man right in front of her that she couldn’t even really see, but knew he was there.

“Lincoln died.”

Clarke didn’t ask any questions. She had thousands. Was Lincoln one of them? Who was he? What happened? What is happening to her?

Instead she sat down on the bathroom floor and held Octavia while she sobbed.

Finn paid their tab and left in a taxi without telling her, assuming she ditched him when she didn’t come out of the bathroom for forty-five minutes and Clarke couldn’t find herself to care. She sat on that floor until the owner kicked her out, and then when she got home to her own flat, she wandered back into Octavia’s cell and silently leaned shoulder to shoulder just hoping that the silence brought the girl comfort.

As time passed, more and more people added to the silent cell. Jasper and Monty, and two other people she never even met before named Raven and Murphy.

Clarke noticed that Bellamy didn’t come.

She didn’t see him again for three weeks, even as she was seeing everyone else more and more. Miller had explained that _no_ she wasn’t crazy, which was a relief. But a sensate. Which honestly, as a medical student, sounded ridiculous.

But then she would feel the gut wrenching pain of Octavia’s loss, or the euphoric joy that Jasper always seemed to be in that could very well be chemically induced, and she would think that maybe it wasn’t the most insane thing in the world.

Isn’t that what crazy people tell themselves to convince themselves they aren’t crazy?

But then he showed up again, worse for wear, dropping his full weight onto her couch with a thud.

“Octavia is my sister,” He said without further explanation, letting the words hang out in the open.

She understood, without him saying it. If she could feel the pain, he could too. It was his sister, and he just wanted to protect her.

Instead she was in a jail cell, and that only person she'd ever really _loved_ was dead.

She could feel his pain, too. It was world crushing, and it was amazing that he could manage to stand.

Clarke blinked and they were back in Seattle, downtown. Bellamy was lying with his back flat on a cement bench in Pike Place Market. She could hear music playing and someone singing with a guitar case in front of them. It was sunny, but still a heavy chill in the air.

“Smells like piss, I know.”

“No, I like it.” She disagreed quickly, taking it all in. There were so many people, different languages being spoken just feet away from her. The smell of fresh flowers and the ocean.

“That’s because you’re in the tourist phase. Try living here for a few years, you’ll get jaded real fast, Princess.”

Clarke smirked, “Oh it’s Princess now? That gets to you so much?”

Bellamy smiled back at her, “Let your boyfriend know that there’s some steep competition, and I don’t play fair.”

They were back on her couch when he kissed her.

He was gone before she could even think about what she was supposed to say next. What do you say to the guy who could possibly understand you better than anyone else?

Things ended with Finn within an hour, and he didn't even sound surprised.

She didn't hear from Bellamy for nearly a month and she thought she was going to really lose her mind this time.

Then she went from walking down the hospital into an industrial kitchen, and the sound of gunfire was ringing in her ears. Clarke could see him ducked behind a table with a gun of his own, dark red blood oozing from his leg. He was hissing in pain, trying to stay focused.

"What the hell is going on?" She demanded as she took over putting pressure on his wound, looking around for something that would keep him stable long enough to get out of there and survive. He had to.

"The people that killed Lincoln? They're not good people." He gritted out, keeping his eyes on the other side of their only cover.

"Why exactly are you fighting them all by yourself?" She asked desperately, trying to look him in the eyes. He shouldn't have to do this alone.

"They can find me, but they can't find the rest of you." He said dismissively.

"They can find me if they'd like, because I will not let you die, Bellamy."

"May we meet again, Clarke." He said softly as the room exploded into chaos, and she felt him shove her away and she was right back at work like nothing had happened.

Except the part of her whole being that felt missing.

That was the day she truly understood Octavia Blake.


End file.
